When you have Terrence McGee as your kick returner it's hard to go away from a guy that has been so productive for the past five seasons. But when you also have the most prolific return man in NCAA history on your bench it's hard not to tap into that talent as well. Three weeks into the 2008 campaign it sounds like the Bills will try to do both.
"We love Terrence (McGee) on the kickoff return," said head coach Dick Jauron. "He's playing a lot of snaps defensively. He loves to return. We'd like to let him do that to some degree, but we'd also like to get Leodis more involved."
McGee is the most prolific kick returner in franchise history with more than double the career return yardage of the player ranked second in team annals (Keith Moody). He is also one of only 23 players in NFL history with over 5,000 kick return yards in his career.
McKelvin's college resume is just as impressive. He has more touchdown returns than any college player in NCAA history with eight. Even though seven of those came on punt returns the Bills top draft pick has plenty of experience returning kicks with 99 kick returns on his college resume.
He also gave the Bills coaching staff an up close look at what he's capable of when he took a kickoff back 95 yards for a score in the preseason against Pittsburgh. The frightening part was on that return McKelvin did not even look as if he was running hard.
"He sticks that foot in the ground and just explodes and when he does it doesn't look like there are a lot of guys that are going to be able to catch him," said Jauron following McKelvin's impressive preseason performance. "It was a great thing for us to see because he's our number one pick. We obviously thought he was very talented and he's shown it."
When the preseason was over, McKelvin averaged 30.2 yards per return with 70 percent of his kick returns going for 20 yards or more.
As impressive an average as that number might be it should be noted that McGee averaged 30.2 yards a kick return for an entire season in 2005, his career best. McGee's career average is a very solid 26.3.
McKelvin had a pair of kick returns late in the game against Jacksonville last week and averaged 21.5 yards with a long of 22. McGee had two returns and averaged 17.5 yards a return with a long of 19.
The bottom line for the Bills is it's a good dilemma to have. McGee is arguably one of the top three kick returners in the league and McKelvin was the best in NCAA history.
The coaching staff clearly believes in McGee, but also feels that McKelvin's return talents are too good to sit on the sidelines week after week.
"We think this is going to be a terrific player for us," said Jauron of McKelvin. "So we don't mind at all if we can take a little bit of the load, just ease a little bit of it off Terrence and get the young guy more involved in our football games."
